


Sand Under Water

by Tonks1247 (AltraX)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-31
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 08:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7040254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AltraX/pseuds/Tonks1247
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You were washed away, just as the writing in the sand as the tide came in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter Summary: The first step in solving a problem is admitting you have one.

* * *

 

Kinsie Marie Mackley  
17 Years Old  
St. Paul, Minnesota, USA  
August 1992

* * *

 

Alone.

The word echoes around the crowded lobby of the hospital. It bounces off the crystal white walls, electrifies the air it takes up, and whispers quietly in her ear. It tells her that no matter how many people are around, no matter how close she inches to the woman sitting beside her, the cold feeling will not leave. It’ll stay with her, like a shadow on a cloudless day. It’ll haunt her, creeping down every hallway she walks and lingering in every room she resides. It’s unnerving, really, how even as she sits in the sunlight, staring out at the autumn’s day, she can’t feel anything but the coldness within her, like a blanket of fresh fallen snow has landed on her and it’s only December.

The rush of footsteps behind her does nothing to soothe her unease. The room is much too big and much too open for her to feel safe, yet as she sits in the centre of the room, she doesn’t look around. She doesn’t act on the urge to take in every detail of her surrounding, to make sure there’s not a man standing in the dark corners of the room, or hiding under the main desk behind her. She gives no indication that her current location is leaving her feeling vulnerable because the second she allows the paranoia to kick in, fear follows. And that…that she doesn’t want.

A shift in noise around her sets her off to his approach. She knows even before she turns around that he’s found her, can hear the relief in the way he walks, in the way his shoes come down on the clean tile floor. She knows he’ll chew her out for being down here, for coming early, without notice, and staying in such an open area. But she can’t help it. She needs to see him. Especially with knowing where she’s setting out to after…she needs him.

“Kinz, what are you doing here?”

His voice is low and rushed, borderline harsh. She knows he doesn’t mean to be. He just worries. And she hates that.

“Do we have somewhere to go for a minute?”

She keeps her voice equally as low as she rises from her seat, arm barely brushing against the cloak of the woman sitting beside her, who pays her no notice.

Her eyes turn to his, blue locking on brown, eyebrow raised with the question. He hesitates, enough to be obvious to her but no one else, before taking a step back and bringing out his arm as an indication for her to walk with him. She offers a tight smile before starting forwards, towards the hallway she’s sure he’s just come from.

He falls into step next to her, hand drifting to rest on the small of her back as his eyes flicker around the room. He’s attentive to any gazes that linger just a little too long on the pair of them or anyone who makes a move towards them—or their pockets—with no obvious reason to.

She would berate his paranoid behaviour (despite the fact she wanted to do this very thing just moments ago) but the slight pressure of his hand on her back is enough withdraw the coldness that she’d been struggling to breathe through without him. She can feel the radiating heat that always surrounding him, that always keeps her grounded and afloat. It is a safe feeling, the only place she knows she can get it from.

He continues leading her forward, hand on her back. He moves around a couple corners and then down a short set of stairs. He stops her at the far end of that hallway, pulling open a door clearly labelled ‘sleeping quarters’ before ushering her inside. He shuts the door tight behind him, fastening the mechanical lock before withdrawing his wand and securing the room further.

“What are you doing here? Especially now? Did I miss an appointment or a meeting or something? Wait, who was with you? You didn’t come out on your own did you? Is something wrong? Did something happen?”

The words flood out of his mouth, almost getting caught on each other as each new question is more pressing than the last. She knows that if she gives him an opportunity, he will continue to work himself up until he hyperventilates, which is something she doesn’t have time for today.

She steps forward as his questions go on. She presses her fingers into his chest, pushing up onto her tiptoes before she cuts him off mid rant, lips on his just long enough for his hands to find her waist.

“Easton, take a breath. I’m fine. Everything is fine. You didn’t miss anything and Halverson is around somewhere,” you assure him quietly, lips ghosting over his. “I just needed to see you.”

“Needed to see me? Kinz.” Relief comes with his sigh as he backs up just a bit, giving himself a little space to breathe. “I know it’s really hard, with it going on almost 15 months of this, but I can’t have you showing up at my work unannounced. It gives me all kinds of anxiety when your name comes through circulation.”

“I’m sorry. I just…it’s just one of those days and being cooped up in that house is only going to my head. I needed to step out and get some air, the little bit I can manage coming here, and just…to see you. You make it better.”

She rushes the words, keeping her voice low and focusing intently on his brown eyes. She knows the lies are looming ahead in the discussion and knows if she’s going to manage this, she has to take his defences down. She’s got to calm him down, get him out of high alert, and slip the lies in just under the radar. It’s the only way.

He sighs after a moment of assessing her. He can see her distress and reads it like she’s just had enough for the day. Fifteen months of being on lockdown, of needing someone to escort you everywhere, all the time, is taxing. It’s taxing on him, and he has been able to get out a couple weekends here or there or take a day or two to do whatever he wants. She doesn’t have that.

“I know I do, but this can’t happen all the time Kinz.”

“It won’t. I just had nowhere else to be today, no opportunity to get out.” She brushes her hair out of her face, resisting the urge to bite her lip at the end of her sentence. “I just…I needed time.”

He sighs again, using his hands, still perched on her waist, to pull her to him. He brings his arms around her back, squeezing her to him and just holding her. “I’m sorry things have been like they have. I do have time off coming up. Maybe I’ll see if I can arrange being somewhere else for that time, yeah?”

Swallowing heavily, she nods her head. “That’d be nice. I miss us.” Tears prickle in her eyes.

“Me too…”

The silence is deafening, almost worse than the loneliness that haunts her when he isn’t around. He seems to understand that as after a minute, he shifts his stance and tightens his arms around her.

“I’m getting off early today. Just a couple more hours then I’ll be home. We can just take some time, you and I.”

Her hands grab at the fabric of his robes, squeezing until she can feel her fingernails digging into her palm through the thin material. She presses her forehead into his shoulder, trying to memorize the way her body fits against his, the way that standing like this allows the hot air of his next breath to blow against her neck and send shivers down her spine. She breathes in his robes, drowning herself in the antiseptic smell of hospital that has a slight smoky edge (he’s probably spent half his day in the potions lab) and a light touch of lavender (he’s definitely been using her shampoo in the shower again).

Eventually, she nods. She agrees to his promise of time, just them. She agrees, and she manages to hold back the tears as her heart stutters a beat. A new kind of coldness takes over in her chest, making it hurt more than anything she had been subjected to in the past, more than anything she’s seen.

“I love you.” Her voice hitches, just a bit, at the word love.

“I love you too,” Easton murmurs, one of his hands moving to lift her chin, eyes soft, smile warm.

His lips lower to hers and she pulls up her walls. She puts the barrier between herself and her feelings and him because this is goodbye…he just doesn’t know it yet.

“I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you later.” His lips hover in her space, not quite willing to stop what’s been started but knowing he’s only got a couple more minutes before he’s got to be back on the floor.

“Okay…yeah…have a good rest of your day.” Her voice comes out steady and she forces the smile she knows he needs to see.

He smiles back at her, lips brushing against hers one more time before he takes the charms off the door and pulls it open. He reaches out his hand for hers, and she takes it. She ignores the butterflies that explode in her stomach, the anxiety that tightens her lungs, and allows him to pull her along until they reach the hallway that connects the rest of the hospital with the lobby. It’s there that he places one more kiss on her cheek before turning and hurrying away.

She watches him, waits until the ends of his sea foam green robes disappear around the corner, before she turns and finds Halverson waiting in the chair closest to the hallway she’s standing in the middle of. She closes her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to stop the aching in her chest, before she walks over to Halverson, stopping next to his chair.

“Are you ready?”

She nods, unable to open her mouth for fear she’d start crying right there in the middle of the room.

He gets to his feet, eyes studying her face for just a moment before his hand comes to rest on the small of her back. The feeling is so much different than the one Easton leaves with her, and that thought is enough to allow a single tear to stream down her face. She wipes it away quickly, allowing Halverson to lead her across the room to the apparition point.

There, she holds tightly to his arm as he turns, causing an all too familiar squeezing sensation to ripple through her. Her eyes squeeze shut tight against the feeling, only opening after her feet have been on solid ground for a couple of moments.

Eyes opening, she doesn’t spare a glance around the entrance hall of the ministry. She’s been through the area so much that the glimmering ceiling tiles and clean marble floors hold no interest to her. Even the ever changing fountain in the centre of the room, which has a different statue in the middle every other week or different ribbons of colour flowing in the water, doesn’t draw her eyes as she hurries to the lifts on the far end of the room.

She can hear Halverson’s footsteps echoing behind her and it helps soothe the spinning in her head a bit. She takes a slow breath as she punches the button for the lift up, mind settling on the procedure she’d memorized and would repeat as a mantra, something to keep her mind off of what the meetings were about, what she was planning on doing.

_Fourth floor. Third door left. Up two, left and down. Wait for five, back up and right._

The lift rattles to a halt before her within a couple of moments. It’s empty and cold, just like it always is as she steps forward, moving to the back corner where she always stands. She makes brief eye contact with Halverson as he joins her and presses the button to close the doors.

_Fourth floor. Third door left. Up two, left and down. Wait for five, back up and right._

Getting off the lift, she mechanically walks down the hall until quickly slipping into the third door on the left, the only unlabelled one in the hallway. She can feel Halverson shadowing her as she takes the stairs two at a time before looping around to the left. There, Halverson stops while she goes down a small rickety set of stairs, down into a space about as big as a telephone booth.

_Wait for five, back up and right. Wait for five, back up and right. Wait for five, back up and right._

Time moves slow, much slower than it should. It seems to take hours for the lights in the room to flicker twice, giving her the indication that the five minutes are up. When they do, she finds her feet suddenly are made of lead. She can hardly pick up her legs as she returns up the very staircase she just descended.

_Back up and right._

Everything appears just how it did five minutes previous. Three doors spaced evenly on the wall, three sets of stairs (one going up and two going down) are on the wall behind her and Halverson is emotionless and just barely leaning against the wall across from the second door.

“This one today.” He indicates the door across from him when his eyes land on hers.

Nodding, she shuffles her feet down the hall before reaching out and opening the door. She glances inside to find the room is very similar to the one behind the first door she usually goes in. The only difference is the table is pushed into the centre of the room with a large cardboard box in the middle of it and a man she’s never seen before stands just beyond it.

“Miss Mackley, please come in. Your personal belongings you were approved to bring can be placed in this box, along with your wand, please.”

The man’s voice is deep and smooth, his posture straight, and his dark navy robes orderly. He doesn’t quite make eye contact as he gives her instructions, and as much as it shouldn’t, she finds it soothing. He’s disconnected from emotions and she knows it’ll just add to her resolve.

Taking a slow breath through her nose, she steps forward and pulls the purse she had slung over her shoulder off. She shifts it around in her hands a couple of times before dropping it into the box. She then extracts her wand from her pocket, spinning it briefly between her fingers before settling that on top of her purse in the box. She takes a moment to find a comfortable stance across from the stranger as Halverson gets the room secured before moving to stand in the corner.

“You’ve gone over all of the details of the agreement. You have no questions or last minute concern or doubts?”

She shakes her head before he even finishes asking the question. She doesn’t have time to re-think her choices. There is no other way she can protect those she loves, no way she can keep them all safe and allow them to live their lives how they want at the same time. It can’t be done unless she does this. For them.

“Alright. We’ve got the agreement form here. All you have to do is sign on the line and we can begin.”

She steps forward at his words, finding that she overlooked the roll of parchment and quill on the table when she first entered. She finds her hands shaking as she reaches out and picks the quill up in her left hand. She closes her eyes as she spreads open the parchment, releasing a long breath before opening them and scrawling her name across the line.

She places the quill back down, quickly crossing her arms over her chest before retreating back to the centre of the room, the only place she really felt comfortable for the time being.

“That’s all we have to do, so, if you’re ready?”

She nods immediately, eyes shifting to the wand in the man’s hand. She watches him raise it before pointing it at her. Doubt flashes across her mind, images of Easton, of the places she’s been locked up in for nearly the last 15 months, of the man who she never really knew, of the body of the most important person in her world on the floor of a house she hadn’t seen in years…

_It’s better for all of us, if I go alone._

Her eyes flutter shut, chest tensing to keep the oxygen in her lungs.

“Obliviate.”


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing worth having comes easy.

Charlotte Eleanor Kling  
20 Years Old  
Cuib Balaur, Romania  
September 1992

* * *

Quiet.

Shadows move in the darkness. They twirl around each other, different shades of grey against the black they swim in. They creep around, not making a sound as they sneak up on one another, taking them by surprise. They envelope each other, sharks in blood infested waters. Anything that moves is fair game.

Boom…boom…boom…boom.

The slow pounding on a drum. Where it comes from is unclear. But it’s loud. It thunders in your ears, the beats falling closer together as your heart hammers in your chest. It’s going much faster than it should be, the blood pulsating in your ears, blocking out all abilities to hear any other noise.

Is there any other noise? You can’t tell. You’re deaf to the beat, finding it pulsating through your body, making it vibrate, every nerve fibre on fire. Almost feels like tiny needles pressing into every inch of your skin. But worse, so much worse. Why do you feel like this?

Blinding. That’s what the pain is. The bright lights shining in your face, fighting past your eyelids and into your eyes. It burns, pupils dilating at the sudden change in intensity and then your reflexes kick in. You try to pull away, turn your head, make it stop hurting as bad as it is right now.

“Lottie? Charlotte, hey, can you hear me?”

The voice is booming in your ear, loud enough to echo through your head over the pulsating of the blood behind your ears. You pull away from the heated breath on your ear, nodding your head rapidly, quickly regretting your choice. Your stomach rolls as your head seems to rotate around your shoulders, the spinning doing nothing but making you even more nauseous.

“Alright, Lottie, I have this potion here. You need to drink it but I also need you to move as little as possible until you’ve got it down, alright?”

“Y…yeah.”

You grimace. Your voice hurts just as much as the rest of you. You’re not sure what happened. You just remember heat. And pressure. Were you hit by a truck? No something more solid than that…

“How the hell did you not see her in the enclosure? She had the light on, the dragon was intent on the decoy.”

Another voice grows louder, more heated. Someone else has come into the room—at least you’re assuming this is the room as the voice seems too contained not to be echoing through a room.

“I…I just…I don’t know,” another voice is more muted. Lower. Worried.

“Take this.”

Your skin feels like it’s burning as a small cool vial is placed in your hand. A hand urges your fingers to close around it as the voice by your ear is low and urgent, telling you to drink it with as little movement as possible. You follow the command, arm feeling heavy as it lifts off the table.

Eyes fluttering open, you find the room almost too bright. It’s hard to focus on the vial when your eyes burn from the light, head pounding as the stimulation is almost too much. You feel another hand rest over yours, urging the cool glass to touch your lips.

With a slow breath, you down the potion in one go, finding the coolness contained in the liquid in the vial traveling down your throat before spreading through your body. The ice running in your veins is painful against the fire on your skin, but it only lasts a few seconds before you feel like yourself again.

Eyes gravitating around, you find yourself haphazardly placed in the medi-room, white walls glowing around you. The cot you’re on is hard and uncomfortable and half the items on the cabinet against the wall are knocked over in the haste of your sudden arrival. Keith, one of the only medi-wizards working on a Friday afternoon hovers next to you, wand floating over your body with his eyes on the numbers floating just a few inches over your chest.

“This is unacceptable. Things could have been a lot worse…she could have been killed!”

Your eyes draw to the voices, the ones that had entered the room just moments before you drank the potion. The instant recognition of Calvin, your boss, standing just inside the doorway, arms flailing with his scolding, soothes you a little. If he’s yelling, you’ll be okay. He only ever gets quiet if the injury is grave, if death is lurking, just waiting to pounce.

The victim, standing just feet in front of him, is a ginger kid, just out of training by the looks of it. He’s got on the typical black uniform, lined with a blue colour meaning he’s from handling. But that’s not what gives away his newness…he’s got this look in his eyes, like he’s terrified about what just happened, but exhilarated just the same. He stands with his shoulders back, eyes flickering towards you, but this slight smile on his face, one that tells you he’s just had one of the best adrenaline rushes of his life.

“Dumbass,” you mutter, eyes rolling as you look back towards Keith, whose standing beside you with another vial in his hand.

“Tell me about it,” Keith growls, obviously not happy that you’re injured—again.

Just last week you were in this same position thanks to one of the new testers, Elise, who obviously didn’t know what she was doing. She had gotten a bit over excited and decided that following procedure wasn’t something she remembered how to do. You saved her last minute, but the right side of your body has gotten a good amount of heat over it. Quite a painful way to get two days off work.

“Can ya get yourself upright?”

Thoughts back to your current situation, you nod. You move slowly, getting your elbows down to prop yourself up for a moment before getting upright. The world spun a bit as you made it the rest of the way up, one of the normal side effects of the potion you just took.

“Fuckin’ hell, it never gets better, does it?” you groan.

Keith shakes his head before offering out the next potion. You take it from his hand, taking it back like a shot and swallowing quickly, trying hard not to gag as the heat flows down to your stomach. Leaning forward to rest your head between your knees, you breathe deeply, finding that your body feels a lot better after a minute or so, and sitting up doesn’t make you feel quite so dizzy.

“Out for the day?”

Your eyes move over to Keith as you move to sit on the edge of the cot, feeling infinitely better now that both potions are taking effect. You don’t figure you hold much of a chance of getting back out into an enclosure today, but if you could manage just getting into the lab, you may not feel like your days completed wasted.

“Yeah. Bunking ya ‘til tomorrow.”

You groan, eyes turning to a glare as you look towards Calvin and the boy, who’s got Weasley very clearly printed across his back in blue letters. This was all his fault that you were out for another six hours, which put you back a total of eighteen that you’d have to make up over the weekend just to keep your standing.

“That is a mandate off campus,” Keith adds, knowing you’ll ignore him if his mandate doesn’t take your access card out.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve got a whole day to waste doing nothing just to make it up this weekend,” you sigh. “I hear you.”

“Good. Testin’ ya once more then yer out.”

You nod, allowing Keith to complete his check with his wand over you as Calvin sends Weasley out of the room, swinging the door shut before standing in front of it, arms crossed and face grim.

“Alright, yer all good,” Keith says, eyes studying the numbers that are floating above you.

“How bad this time? Just out of curiosity.”

“Potion was for spleen and muscles in your abdomen and back. Six bones, pelvis on the same side as last time, the rest ribs. Headache will come and go, you’ve got the potion for that still at home, I’m sure.”

“Getting a good record at least,” you mutter, eyes back on Calvin.

“Off for the day Kling?”

Calvin’s voice is deep, much deeper than when he was yelling moments ago. His eyes are narrowed just a bit and his cool demeanour has returned.

You nod. “Mandate off. Keith’s order, Captain.”

Calvin’s eyes shift from yours to Keith’s, who nods his head in affirmation. He then nods. “Key card is off, you’re off campus in 15 or you’ll be escorted out.”

“Copy that,” you respond, eyes’ meeting Calvin’s once more before he turns and exits the room, leaving the door open.

“Got 15, go,” Keith says, indicating the door when you turn to look at him to make sure you can leave.

“Thanks Keith,” you offer him a tight smile as you get to your feet, stretching your arms up over your head as your side aches, muscles feeling stiff after the repair.

“Not a problem. Don’t want you back here for at least a month though, yeah?”

You give a grim smile. “I’ll work on that.”

Keith smiles at you with a nod before you head for the door, glancing down to see a couple mild tears in your uniform, which is lined in purple, rather than blue, as part of the testers. You pull a face, knowing you only had one more decent uniform that hadn’t been singed or destroyed by a dragon in the last four months. It meant you’d have to invent some time to go get fitted for another couple sets as you were sure inspection was coming up.

With a sigh, you head for the locker room, resigned to the fact that you were headed home to find something to entertain yourself for the rest of the day. You don’t even make it around the corner before you feel someone fall into step beside you.

“Sorry about that, Kling.”

The voice is low and apologetic, sounding much different than it had in the room, when your head was spinning from all the noise and injury. You give half a glance to confirm its Weasley before shrugging off the apology, treating him just as you did any other handler who did something stupid that they obviously shouldn’t have.

“Should be. Could have killed me. One more strike this month, and I’m out ‘til November as well. None of it my fault.”

His breath catches for a minute, and you fight off the smile at the impact of your words. You weren’t one for apologies; hated them as much as you hated people doing stupid things.

“Really am sorry. Didn’t even see you.”

“Realized that much,” you mutter, eyes turning daggers on him. “Just because you’re a handler doesn’t give you the right to be stupid. Tallies come easy and it only takes 2 major ones before you’re out.”

“Noted.”

“Good.”

You keep up your steady pace, not offering him any more as he continues to follow you around the corner to the entrance of the locker rooms. You slow your step for a second, glancing over at him to see him carefully looking at you.

“Anything else?” you ask, raising an eyebrow as you pause, hand on the door handle.

He shakes his head rapidly. “Just sorry.”

“As you’ve said,” you reply, rolling your eyes before pulling the locker room open and entering.

You let out a heavy breath as you go over to your locker, pulling it open before stuffing your street clothes into your bag. There was no sense in changing to leave your uniform at work when the uniform was torn to the point of disrepair. It was just another point of frustration, walking off campus in your uniform to an empty flat in an empty bunker as everyone was still in at work, either in the lab or in the enclosures working. It was just another day of losing time and risking rank.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact! Cuib Balaur translates to Dragon's Nest in Romanian.


End file.
